In the Name of Success.

I read a comment on somebody’s blog today which said ‘I want to become an author with an international bestseller.’ This is a compound statement that raises a question: which is the top priority, being an author or having an international bestseller? Writing because you have something worthwhile to say, and writing to become rich and famous are two very different things. In today’s ultra-commercial environment, the chances of doing both to any substantial degree are fairly remote – at least where fiction is concerned.

It is, of course, everybody’s right to choose what they want out of life, but I can’t help feeling that there is something fundamentally inadequate about wanting to be rich and famous. Neither is a guarantee of any real worth in a person; in fact, it seems largely to work the other way round. Most of the wealthy and celebrated people I see in this culture are the sort I wouldn’t even invite in for a cup of tea, let alone want to get to know. The desire to belong to that self-exalted set suggests to me that the person is essentially concerned with what they can get, rather than what they can be.

But then, maybe his desire to have an ‘international bestseller’ isn’t about either money or fame. Maybe he feels that such an achievement would represent the ultimate definition of success. This is where it becomes a little more complicated, because if the desire to write is driven by the fact of having something worthwhile to say, then it’s an entirely wrong definition of success. It’s allowing success to be determined by the judgment of others. Success to a writer of this sort has nothing to do with being published, but is about saying what you have to say in an effective manner. Once that has been achieved, there is no more success to be had; being published is merely a useful outcome. It’s useful because it means that the writer’s outpourings are being communicated to an audience and is, therefore, worth pursuing, but that’s all. It doesn’t define success.

If it should seem that my argument is wandering into the realm of semantics, let me offer the analogy of the fruit tree. The fruit tree succeeds when it bears fruit. It can’t succeed any further. If somebody comes along and eats that fruit, there has been a useful outcome. But if the fruit remains uneaten, the success of the tree remains undiminished. So it is with writing.

Success in any occupation should be about growth and personal accomplishment. Its value definition should be self-contained; it shouldn’t be about winning, making a lot of money, or becoming famous. Therein lies the road to dependence on the opinions, choices and approbation of others.